You are thinking too linearly when you speak of a "pathogen" as the cause. I maintain that PD is a state of being that reflects an ongoing collapse of a half-dozen critical systems with the closest thing to a "cause" being a hypervigilant immune system that overreacts to the ptesence of a very common substance (LPS) and which the regulation of the endocrine system is unable to handle. Its primary effect lies in the inflammatory response to the toxin, at least initially. But as life progresses, the triggering stimulus becomes more wide defined and includes anything which triggers or amplifies the neuro-inflammatory response. It doesn't matter if one is responding to the coal smoke of London in 1800 or of Mexico City in 2000 - IF one was exposed previously or even in utero to LPS. It is the reaction that is at the heart of PD and it is a bear because it feeds of so many sources.

Virtually every "cause" that has been put forward to evplain PD has ultimately failed after coming close initially. The research failed because it took into account only half the problem. There is a long list of these "failures" that suddenly spring back to life when the other half of this equation is filled in. What do Amish and manganese miners with PD have in common? The first reacts to hay dust with the inflammatory response. The second reacts to manganese exposure with it. As does the American exposed to aluminum in the air. Mercury leeching out of his dental work. The dust bunnies in the corners of his home. And so on.

But, one asks, so what? Is the body so sensitive to LPS that it will respond with collapse to the neuroinflammation? DSoes that not mark a species for extinction? I mean, we are saying that one is reacting to one of the most common substances in our environment by committing suicide, aren't we? And why would it take so darned long?

Those are sensible questions, I grant. But they are distractions because they fail to take into account the "rest of the story" - the power of the immune sysyem's messenger cells called cytokines. There are about 24 of these. Half of them cause an increase in the neuroinflammation and half a decrease. These are not ordinary cells with news from Upper Big Toe, Nebraska. These are the magic potions that allow the immune system to completely take over not only our bodies but our minds as well. The most common example and one with which we are all familiar is what is known as "sickness" behavior. You know, that urge to crawl away under a bush and just die? Or to whine for chicken soup? We don't usually think about it, but there you have one part of your brain taking the keys away from another.

So, we have the jihadist immune cells (microglia) gearing up to whip some invader butt; while the neuro system wanders around with open mouth and without a clue; while the endocrine system splashes its secretions around and like Sister Mary Oliphant keeps trying to get the classroom under control: while down at the GI Ranch the bunkhouse has been flooded with those darned cytokines that seem to be everywhere and which encourage a steady constipation as well as inflammation of the bowel and all the Nasties that it holds; while this gastroinflammation leads to a leaky gut poisoning the blood which then finds Ron's BBB and invades the CNS!

All this excess is normally balanced by the endocrine system and its magic glands through the use of an amazing device called the "feedback loop". Things start moving too fast? A moment with the Loop puts it to rights. Critical thresholds approaching? No problem. Just a tweak!

But somethings wrong. The saloon is in an uproar and someone shot the piano player. And Timmy is having little luck getting the attention of a grown up to tell him that the barn is on fire.

Now, THAT is Parkinson's Disease!

If you go back and brush away the fluff, you will find at least five systems taking part. Not simply being influenced or being buffeted about, but actually running up and down the hall with a hockey mask and a chainsaw!

I speak of "balance" quite a bit because that is what PD is all about. And I just don't mean the face-plant kind. I mean the type that has a highly adatable yet finely tuned creature ignoring the fact that he evolved in a womb of 24 hour periods endlessly repated. With half of it bathed in light. And not ordinary light, mind you, but light with the numbers precisely defined. So much so that you could design a miracle around it. Or at least you could until the early 1800s when artificial lighting came along with shift work in tow.

So Balance took a blow as people walked the smoggy streets in the dark going to thier dusty hell hole jobs. With no one to catch them if they fall through the safety net because they left the family structure (once again refecting 100,000s of years of teting to find what worked) back in the fields where their species was born. And where you began in the morning with the sun and went to bed with the moon and the time between was peaceful because your stresses were shortlived acute ones and not the soul-eating pressures of the chronic ones that never leave. And keep balance at bay all your life.

So much change and coming so fast tears at the soul. And like the canary in the coal mine, some of us get to warn the rest.

As to that book? I still intend to write it again. The first version was lost in a server crash some time back. The gist of it can be read at my blog at A Matter of Balance. Unexpected offers of cash are accepted and may be left in the cigar box at the right....